Melbourne's Warm Weather

Just prior to leaving the Sunshine Coast we had a welcome visitor, a kookaburra popped in to see us. This looked like a young bird but did not seem frightened by us.

For those living overseas, the kookaburra is an Australian bird which is renowned for its 'laugh'. Its call sounds as if it is laughing. It also has the name "Laughing Jackass". It is a meat eater and is known to feed on small rodents, lizards and even snakes.

We fed him some BBQ sausage which he did not really like. It was great to have it visit us.

We flew to Melbourne Wednesday afternoon and caught up with all the grandchildren as well as Kate, Kim and Chris' wife Wendy. Chris was finishing his study! (He was doing his final exam).

It was a great night. On Thursday we settled in to living out of a suitcase. I spent much of the day with Gordon Atkin with my external hard drive installing various pieces of computer software which had been acquired in certain ways! A BBQ with Kate, Arj and the kids completed a quiet first day in Melbourne! And the max of 25 degrees was great too. Cooler wet weather is forecast for tomorrow.

Melbourne Tomorrow

Today is getting ready to go away time. Lots of small jobs like clean the pool, mow the lawn, clear things from under the patio, put the bikes away and put outdoor furniture in a safe spot. We also have to arrange to have the mail collected for us and the 14 potplants watered. Then the bins need to be brought in too! Lots of little fiddly things to do.

We arrive in Melbourne Wednesday afternoon and we return to the Sunshine Coast on Monday Sept 10.

We have a small courtyard to one side of the house. Building requirements mean this has to be so the toilet, laundry and 'office' (3rd bedroom) can have windows and therefore fit into building regulations. The area is so small though you can hardly do anything with it. We had potplants in there but it gets so hot in summer the plants don't like it all.

We are now up to option 3! It is another variation on the 'beer garden' we have had in there before.

Sam The Bellhop

Unfortunately you will most likely need to have a broadband connection to view this.



Either that or go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C96Hc1m7pRU

Thanks again to Keith for this.

Nice sunny day again as the place begins to dry out. We are expecting about 23 or so.

Sunshine!

I was just about to put another blog post up yesterday when friends from Melbourne arrived for a quick visit. About 4 hours later they went and I was not in any condition (or frame of mind) to do the blog page!

A few showers Saturday morning saw the end of the rain. Blue sky started to show and the place warmed up quickly to the low 20's. It was great to have the sunshine back again, the weather does have an impact on your 'frame of mind'. The pool needed a good clean and some general tidying up needed to be done. This photo was taken mid morning on Saturday as the rain just cleared!

When in living in Melbourne I was at the football most weekends. There was a group of us who would meet and this made going to the footy lots of fun. A few beers and a good chat was always on the cards. There were many humorous stories too over those 30 years! The group changed a bit. The chap who dropped in yesterday was one of those guys I used to go to the footy with. It was a great afternoon.

Today (Sunday) I have cleaned the swimming pool, cleaned the pool filter and completed some tidying up after the rain.

Not only did we get a total of 304 mls (12 inches) of rain for the week, we also had gale force south easterly winds for the 5 or 6 days. This photo shows how 'ingrained' the rain became blown against the wall of the house. Though we have had no rain for well over 24 hours, the bricks on the eastern wall of the house remain saturated.

The lad Chris has a new job and he will be working for Boeing in Port Melbourne.

Blogger (at http://www.blogger.com/ ) really makes making your own blog page very easy. There are numerous tools available for you to use to make your page interesting. It is easy to add photos and links. You can choose your 'design' from many templates, add and remove 'elements' easily and just today they have made it so you can add your own video to the page. This is not a good idea though for readers who are on 'dial-up' as it would slow down how the page loads. Try it, it is lots of fun and so easy to do.

Rain And More Rain!

For three weeks I did not have to bother about tipping any rain out of the rain gauge. And being August (our driest month with just over 60mls average) this was not surprising. However the freak conditions which have prevailed since a storm first struck on Tuesday night has seen rainfall records for the Sunshine Coast smashed to pieces.

Here has been relatively dry compared to what has happened north of Noosa. There, recordings of over 600mls were made in the 24 hours to 9 am this morning! I emptied the rain gauge yesterday morning about 6:30 am. This morning I tipped out 134 mls at about the same time. It is now approaching 11 am and there is another 20+ mls in the gauge.

This makes a whopping 153 mls since 6:30 am yesterday, (6 inches in the old terms) and a total almost 240 mls for the week!

Click on this photo for a larger view.

At the foot of this blog page is an add-on which provides some weather details for the Sunshine Coast. These figures are taken from the Maroochydore Airport about 30 kms north of here and therefore are a little different to my figures.